Strengthen the Army with debate

Cadet John Buchanan debating in 1958. Thanks to Execution Hollow for the photo!

Gen. Wesley Clark, Gen. David Petreaus, Brig. Gen. Dan Kaufman and Brig. Gen. Mike Meese are all alumni of one program—West Point’s debate team. The Army Debate Team also has less prominent alumni, like me and my debate partner, Capt. (ret.) Elliot Press, and Harding Project co-founder Capt. Theo Lipsky.  

In 1947, Colonel George Lincoln, head of the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy at West Point organized and hosted the first National Debate Tournament. The modern version of intercollegiate debate remained at USMA for 20 years, before the tournament began to rotate through different schools. The Army Debate Team still resides within the Department of Social Sciences and continues to win tournaments across the nation. I competed on the Army Debate Team from 2000 to 2004 and coached the Army Debate Team from 2013 to 2016.  The lessons I learned through debate continue to serve me today. 

Based on my experience I learned debating, I see the opportunity within our Army’s centers of excellence to strengthen the profession by growing and developing junior leaders through the vehicle of debate.      

The Value of Debate 

Debate supports strengthening the profession in two ways: at the individual leader level and at the institutional decision-making level. Increasingly, junior leaders are required to be excellent communicators—thinking, speaking, and writing coherently, cogently, and effectively.  Our platoon leaders must write orders and deliver presentations, and also talk to their soldiers about everything from tactical missions to ethics.  

Fortunately, debate hones all the skills necessary for excellence in communication. Debate requires preparedness through research, critical thinking, and focus on narrow questions that have no easy answers.  Debate also requires presentation: public speaking in a manner that is concise, well-organized, and compelling.  Lastly, debate requires agility, thinking on your feet to creatively solve problems that you identify by actively listening to your opponent’s arguments.  

Debaters must respond to every counterargument or they may lose the debate.  The debate environment allows for disagreement that is not disloyalty and adversarial dialogue without personal animosity between participants.  The art of civil discourse is foundational to effective leadership.  In debate, everyone must be included, heard, and accounted for, but not everyone agrees.  Debaters learn the art of persuasion, though persuasiveness is only one element of success.  The victor is chosen by a judge who will either be compelled by one side or repelled by the other.  

For institutional leaders, debate helps decision-makers receive varied perspectives that are well-researched and thought through with less investment than required by the publication of papers and articles. 

The forum of debate protects debaters from social pressures or fear of reprisal. The sides in a debate are assigned, rather than chosen. Debate is not about personal advocacy or an individual belief in a particular position.  Instead, it is about taking the assigned position and making it strong, so the debater has no risk of losing credibility in the eyes of the decision-maker.  Debate is also traditionally organized into tournaments, meaning debaters rotate through affirmative and negative positions. No participant can be characterized as consistently or personally contrarian, reactionary, or rigid.  Every participant must eventually deliver argument from every angle, which improves the strength of the argument and, in turn, leads to better decisions.

Debate for Army Decision-Making 

There are many forms, styles, or types of debate that can be tailored to the needs of the organization or individual.  For the Army’s purposes, extemporaneous or other kinds of debate that prevent debaters from knowing or researching the specific topic beforehand are less beneficial than structured debates like Lincoln-Douglas, Parliamentary, or Policy.

For the Army’s purposes, no single debate format needs to be explicitly adopted.  What is important is that the rules, structure, and format of the debate are known to the participants, the audience, and the judge early enough in the process to provide the debaters time enough to research, rehearse, and clash during the performance of the debate.

Debates are governed by a resolution.  The resolution is a declarative statement, not a fact, not true or false, instead a hypothesis or a call for action that can have reasonable evidence both in support and opposition.  This means the Affirmative team debates in favor of the Resolution and must present an idea or plan that does something to make the Resolution functionally true, while the Negative team debates to either discredit the action of the Affirmative team, defend the status quo, and/or negate the action called for in the Resolution.  The Negative team is said to have every scenario not presented by the Affirmative team, while the Affirmative holds the advantage of speaking first and last because they are limited to the topic of the Resolution and have the burden of advocating for change against the status quo.

Example – RESOLVED: The Army should require sew-on rank for physical fitness uniforms.

The Affirmative team must research current uniform policy and could present the specific wording of the new policy in their first constructive.  Those on the affirmative would benefit from studying the example of other country’s armed forces who have similar policies.  The Affirmative could describe the challenges and confusion for soldiers wearing PTs that have no visible rank and how having identifiable rank during PT hours might lead to improved physical fitness test scores.

The Negative team must be prepared to explain why PTs without rank is good for the Army.  The Negative could also use their first constructive to not only discredit the Affirmative course of action, but also to write their own version of a sew-on rank policy that is different from what the Affirmative proposed in their first speech.  The Negative might also try to find disadvantages to the new policy, perhaps the cost to the individual of sewing on rank or the limited supply of fabric that could better be used for some other purpose.

An entire debate with 2 debaters on each side takes no longer than 52 minutes, structured as followed: 

1^ST Affirmative Constructive – 5min

Cross-Examination – 2min

1^ST Negative Constructive – 5min 

Cross-Examination – 2min

2^nd Affirmative Constructive – 5min

Cross-Examination – 2min

2^nd Negative Constructive – 5min

Cross-Examination – 2min

1^st Negative Rebuttal – 3min

1^st Affirmative Rebuttal – 3min

2^nd Negative Rebuttal – 3min

2^nd Affirmative Rebuttal – 3min 

Each team is allotted 6 minutes of preparatory time to be taken in random increments at any time during the debate.

Within 8 minutes, the judge could render a decision and provide feedback to the teams and the audience, all within one hour from start to finish. 

Conclusion 

Debate strengthens the profession. It has been successful with West Point cadets for over 75 years and the benefits of debate competition have been known to the Army since General MacArthur first deemed debate an intramural sport. Debate is more accessible than branch journal publication, requires only a small amount of time to implement, and would improve the cadence and quality of senior leader decision-making across all branches.